Bill Taranto

I think being successful early on helped quite a bit.

You know, we proved that we're good stewards of the money, that we know how to make a financial return.

And then, of course, over time, that leads to strategic returns.

You don't usually get strategic returns right away when you start the fund because you're just building these companies in the portfolio.

Obviously, now that we're in our 16th year, we have a nice sort of rolling system where we're, you know, we're investing $100 million a year, we're exiting over $100 million.

So, you know, we're bringing in money, but we're investing money.

And that gives Merck a tremendous amount of comfort that the fund itself is a well-oiled machine that runs, you know, very systematically and very efficiently.

And I think that in and of itself gives management, you know, great comfort.

But ultimately, in the end, we are a venture fund and we have to do two things.

You know, we have to provide financial returns and we have to provide strategic value.

And as long as we're showing that every year and then communicating in the proper way that we're executing on a strategy that solves their problems, then you can survive in a corporate.

And we've been able to do that for 16 years, even with all those leadership changes.

Not affected us in one bit.

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think one of the

biggest things for a venture capital firm, especially in healthcare, because as I said, it's one of the most complicated industries, the most regulated industries is discipline.

There was a lot of money that came into the system in 2021.

And to your point, that's where we saw the valuations that were out of control.

We never participated in that.

We didn't invest in things that we felt where the valuations were out of control.